A number of months ago, we discovered through Facebook about a new escape room outfit in our home city of Canberra. I was surprised to hear this but my interest was piqued by the website claiming to take a new approach to escape rooms in Canberra. So we took advantage of the early bird discount and booked into a session in the opening week. This was my 35th escape room and my 8th Canberra escape room.
Theme
From their website:
The year is 2022. Seemingly out of nowhere, a mysterious virus known as Valerium emerged and plunged the world into chaos. No quarantine could contain the virus as it spread across the world, killing thousands.
A major pharmaceutical company by the name of Genesis Laboratories has posted an ad for researchers to help create a cure. You respond to the job offer; however, when you arrive things are not as they seem. Can you create a cure before it’s too late?
The game was on theme, with a clean sparse laboratory look and a good flow to the game.
Game breakdown
The game starts with the usual briefing covering the types of locks present, what to do and not to do. You need to sign an electronic waver (keep your phone out to do this before locking your phone away). A slight improvement is for the game masters to make available a tablet at the counter to do the waivers. Phones and valuables are locked away, and then it’s time to don the provided blindfolds and be led into the room.
Once we were in the room, we were told to keep the blindfolds on and listen to the story provided by a voiceover. Once that was done, we could remove the blindfolds and start the game. We soon discover that we were not employed to be researchers to help create a cure but are part of a dastardly plot!
The game starts with a number of multilinear puzzles. What I really liked is that there’s a whiteboard provided with whiteboard markers so I didn’t have to rely on my memory (which has really gone downhill since having a baby). If you’re like me in terms of a not-so-good memory, this aspect of the game really helped me to get through the game.
The rhythm of the puzzles and the flow of the room was good. There was a good mix of puzzles, including logic and deduction, matching, decryption and mechanical. We made good pace throughout the puzzles except for two – one of which we had misinterpreted the logic puzzle and another which we had over thought and gone way off track despite the game master providing numerous hints. This slowed us down considerably so my advice is read things properly and don’t overthink it.
We’ve seen variations of the puzzles in other escape rooms we have played, but the game designers did a good job making it their own and keeping the flow of the puzzles at a good pace. There was one puzzle which was an interesting take on the memory puzzle types and I haven’t seen this particular implementation before.
There is constant monitoring of the room, so if you need help at any point, just speak aloud and the game master will provide unlimited help with no penalty to time.
Out of room experience
Service:
The game masters were really friendly and passionate about their escape room. They kept a close eye on the game and provided help quickly.
Lockers are provided of your personal belongings and I love that they provide free drinks if you need it!
What I also like about this company is that the rooms are wheelchair accessible, but you will need at least one non-wheelchair user as some puzzles are at a height that will make it difficult for wheelchair users.
Now about the new approach to escape rooms…..Revelation Puzzle Rooms wanted players to take home a part of the experience. Most places take a photo for you, but Revelation goes beyond with beautifully made custom pins. You are given a Toxic themed pin and if you happen to set a record for the room, you also get an additional pin! And that’s not all…post game, the game master will walk you through the room and you can see the room analytics. It’s always interesting to see how long we have taken for a puzzle compared to earlier players. The detailed room analytics are meant to be sent to you post game too but unfortunately that particular function wasn’t working the day we were there (but we still got the walkthrough and could see the analytics on the screen).
I really like both the pins and the detailed analytics walkthrough of the game. Such a fun aspect to the game.
Getting here and parking
Revelation Puzzle Rooms are located in Fyshwick, so you can technically get here via public transport, but it’ll be significantly faster and easier to get here by car. As the business has just opened, they’re still working on signage so here’s a picture of what the front looks like:
We came on the weekend and there was a lot of free parking just in front of the escape room.
Food
If you’re here on the weekend, note that there is extremely limited food options in the area. It’s best to eat elsewhere and then head in. If you’re here during the week, there’s a number of food places within driving distance, such as The Flute Bakery (open limited hours but great cakes and pastries) and Zierholz Premium Brewery.
Summary
Considering that the owners/game designers are new to the escape room genre (they discovered it earlier this year) and this is their first room, they have done a great job! Puzzles are on the easier end of the spectrum but saying that, we still only managed to barely escape on time (21 seconds left on the clock – dammit it overthinking brain!).
Definitely worth a play and I’m loving the Pins idea!
- Overall: 4.0/5
- Fun: 4.5/5
- Atmosphere: 3.4/5
- Difficulty: 3/5 (this game is suitable for people new to escape rooms)
- Creativity of puzzles: 4/5
- Game duration: 60 minutes
- Cost: From $32-$39/person (depends upon how many players you have)
- Team size: 2-8 people (although a team of 3 – 4 would be the ideal size as too many players will get in the way and there may not be enough puzzles for 8 people)
- Escaped ? Yes! 🙂 We had 3 experienced escape room players in the room.
- Played: 16 September 2018
About Revelation Puzzle Rooms
Revelation Puzzle Rooms is jointly owned by Daniel (the game designer) and Amiel (business partner and game master). Their escape room opened in September 2018 and they already have plans for the next room (which I can’t wait to play).
Where:Unit 8/151-155 Gladstone Street, Fyshwick, 2609.
Website: Revelation Puzzle Rooms
Featured image credit: Revelation Puzzle Rooms
Escape Room Explorers 